Wash. Times quoted Indiana man saying Obama is "a Muslim" without noting the assertion is false

Summary: A Washington Times article uncritically quoted an Indiana man saying of Sen. Barack Obama, "I can't stand him. ... He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned." By contrast, after quoting the same man in its own article, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that "Obama has never been a Muslim, but bogus e-mails accuse him of being a Muslim who put his hand on a copy of the Quran to be sworn into the U.S. Senate and refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance."

In a May 7 article, Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan wrote that Sen. Barack Obama "continues to have trouble with voters' preconceived notions about him, including one man eating breakfast at an Indiana restaurant who waved him away when the candidate approached him." Dinan then uncritically quoted the man stating, "I can't stand him. ... He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned." By contrast, in a May 7 article, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote:

Though Obama outspent Clinton 2-to-1 in Indiana, there was just no reaching some people. At a restaurant outside Indianapolis Tuesday morning, one man waved Obama away when the senator approached him to shake his hand. The man told a reporter, "I can't stand him. He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."

Obama has never been a Muslim, but bogus e-mails accuse him of being a Muslim who put his hand on a copy of the Quran to be sworn into the U.S. Senate and refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, Obama is, in fact, not a Muslim.

From Dinan's May 7 Washington Times article:

Mr. Obama continues to have trouble with voters' preconceived notions about him, including one man eating breakfast at an Indiana restaurant who waved him away when the candidate approached him.

"I can't stand him," the man told a reporter trailing Mr. Obama. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."

Indiana's primary was also another test for the state's strict photo-identification requirement for voters, which was upheld by the Supreme Court last month.

The Associated Press said voting ran smoothly, though they found a situation in which about a dozen nuns from Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend were turned away because they didn't have valid identification and said they didn't want to fulfill the requirements for provisional ballots.

—T.A.